


Chicken Fried Rice

by goldenspecter



Category: Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Cartoon 2018), Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles - All Media Types
Genre: 14 yr olds are just like this all the time, Brotherly Affection, Brotherly Bonding, Brotherly Love, Cooking, Cooking Lessons, Fluff and Humor, Food as a Metaphor for Love, Gen, Insecurity, Theres a reason mikey has the braincell most of the time, only slightly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-07
Updated: 2020-11-07
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:46:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27438295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldenspecter/pseuds/goldenspecter
Summary: “That pot is too little for all of that rice,” Mikey said finally, “You needed a bigger pot.”“I only poured in half a pot of rice,” Donnie complained.Mikey stared at him, really stared at him before he spoke. “You do realize that rice expands when cooked right?” he said, “You do realize that?”Donnie was silent, looking away from Mikey.“Donnie!”Donnie threw his hands up in slight frustration and embarrassment. “I didn’t know! I don’t cook rice!” he whined with a pout. “This is my first time cooking rice, how I was supposed to know?”Mikey laughed at his brother and laughed a little harder at Donnie’s whining. Maybe he should be the older brother here, with how much whining Donnie was doing. “Well, rice absorbs water when you cook it. Now you know.” Mikey did another taste test of the rice, “It’s done. You need to drain the rice.”Donnie makes chicken fried rice. Mikey watches over. Shenanigans and brotherly fluff ensue.
Relationships: Donatello & Leonardo & Michelangelo & April O'Neil & Raphael (TMNT), Donatello & Michelangelo (TMNT), Donatello & Shelldon
Comments: 6
Kudos: 66





	Chicken Fried Rice

**Author's Note:**

> Did I really write nearly three thousand words about Donnie cooking rice? Yea I did, and I blame my 14 year old cousin who I had to explain that yes, rice expands when you cook it. 14 year olds are wild, can't be me. 
> 
> I could go on about how much I like writing about food, processes, and characters going through the process of cooking but I won't. All I'll say is that it's fun and you should give it a try!

At this particular moment in time, Donnie was getting nowhere on this project he was working on. If there was such a creative block that inventors go through, like writers’ block or art block, then that was what he was going through at this right now. Shelldon was doing his best to keep him engaged with this project by endlessly praising him and telling him that he could figure it out. But even with Shelldon’s praise, he felt like an idiot for not figuring what the hell had been stumping his genius intellect for so long. 

Setting his tools down, Donnie placed the welding torch far away from him and closed out the blueprints on his computer. Donnie stood up, stretched his arms out for the first time in hours, feeling his bones creak and ache as he did so. _Man,_ he had been sitting down for too long. Thank goodness Raph wasn’t here to see this or else his older brother would have lectured him about his horrendous self-care routine and extreme work schedule in action. Donnie didn’t need yet another lecture, he knew about his terrible habits and he was going to work on it...eventually. The growling in his stomach told him he needed to eat and he could not honestly remember when was the last time he had eaten something, so it wouldn’t hurt for him to go eat something. 

“Shelldon, would you like to accompany your father while he goes to make himself something to eat?” he called out to his robot son, who whirred in excitement and flew over to Donnie. 

“I never thought I would leave the lab!” Shelldon said, following Donnie as they went out of the lab and headed towards the kitchen. “What are you going to eat father? Pizza?”

The thought of pizza made Donnie frown. As much as he liked pizza, which, by the way, was a _lot,_ the idea of eating yet another pizza wasn’t really appealing to him right now. “No Shelldon, I think I’m all pizza’d out at the moment,” he said honestly. 

“You can’t be pizza’d out! That’s impossible!” Shelldon exclaimed, flapping his flippers in shock. “Pizza is our lifeline!” 

“Ah, I know, Shelldon. Believe me, I know,” Donnie replied dramatically, rubbing his hand across Shelldon’s head. “I’m kinda in the mood for shrimp fried rice, ya know?”

“Not really, since I can’t eat,” Shelldon deadpanned. 

“Ah, you sound just like your father,” Donnie said proudly. 

They had made it into the kitchen, where Mikey was sitting at the table with his legs crossed in the chair, engrossed in whatever he was drawing at the moment. Donnie went over to the pantry, grabbed the box of rice, set it at the counter next to the sink. He then walked to the rack where the pots were handing and grabbed a short, large silver pot, and sat it in the sink. Opening the box, Donnie started pouring in the rice, just enough for him but he had accidentally poured more than what he thought he would need. _Whoops._ Perhaps it would be better to make some for everyone, since knowing them, if he had tried to make it just for himself, it would be gone before he even got a bite. 

Donnie filled up the pot halfway, turned the sink head away from the side of the sink that the pot of rice was in, turned the water on, and quickly washed his hands. Shelldon hovered over Donnie, watching in interest.

The sound of rushing water caught Mikey’s attention. “Whatcha makin Don?”

“Shrimp fried rice,” Donnie answered. 

“Ah okay,” said Mikey, “Make sure you wash the rice before you start cooking.”

Donnie turned to face Mikey, raised a sharpie eyebrow, “Why would you wash rice?” He asked, not paying attention to Mikey’s incredulous face. “What would you even use for it? Dishwashing liquid?”

Mikey rubbed his fingers against his temples, slightly annoyed by his genius brother’s stupidity. Donnie had a lot of book smarts, yes, but street smarts and common sense? There was a reason why Mikey held the brain cell most of the time. “No, you knucklehead, you don’t use _dishwashing liquid,”_ he said, “You do it so you can wash off the pesticides and chemicals in the rice and to make sure that it doesn’t clump together when you cook it.”

Ah, that makes sense. “That sounds more reasonable,” Donnie said finally. 

Shelldon snickered, “I don’t have any flesh but even I know not to use dishwashing liquid!” The robot’s snickers turned into loud laughter, and Donnie frowned, trying to suppress the blush that was spreading across his cheeks. 

“I guess I gotta walk you through this because you were about to use literal _dish soap_ to wash your rice,” Mikey said, “Get a metal bowl.”

With a nod, Donnie grabbed a metal bowl from off the shelves and sat it down. 

“Alright, run some water in the pot,” Mikey instructed. 

“How much?”

“Enough to submerge it,” said Mikey. Donnie did was he was told, turning the water on and ran it over the water. He watched as the water covered the rice and soon, the rice was submerged in it. 

“I think you can turn it off the water Dad,” Shelldon said. 

Donnie hmm’d and did exactly that. “Umm, what now Angelo?”

“Pour the water from the pot into the bowl. Cover the rice with your hand so none of the rice grains slip through,” said Mikey.

Donnie eyed Shelldon, doing what Mikey was telling him to do. He picked up the pot with both of his hands, set it on the edge of the counter, placing the metal bowl in the sink. He covered the opening of the pot with one of his hands and looked at Shelldon, “You think he meant like this?” he asked, uncertain. 

“I think so,” Shelldon said. 

“Okay then,” Donnie said, tilting the water out of the pot and into the bowl. The stream of water poured out of his hands and into the bowl. Opaque, milky water stared back at him when he finished. “Mikey, what do I do with the water?”

“What does it look like?” Mikey said, not looking away from his drawing. “Is it clear?”

“No,” Donnie drawled, “It looks cloudy.”

“Well then, you’ll have to pour out the water and repeat it again until the water is clear. You have to punch the rice in the pot before you start over,” Mikey explained. 

Punch the rice? What did that mean? Donnie wanted to ask his youngest brother what he meant by that but he didn’t want to bother Mikey anymore than he already was. He was a certified genius, he could figure it out. 

...With Shelldon’s help. 

“Shelldon, can you look up how to punch rice?” Donnie whispered, not wanting Mikey to hear him. Shelldon nodded and proceeded to search the internet on how to punch the rice. 

“I have some results that might be helpful, Dad.” Shelldon said, “One source says to curl your fingers into a loose fist and gently punch the rise at a steady pace. Turn the bowl between punches to move the wet rice around, grinding it lightly against itself.”

Donnie thought he could do that. Forming his hand into a loose fist, he started gently punching the rice at a decent speed and turned the bowl as he did so. Once he managed to punch the rice enough times, he ran some more water into the pot, submerging the rice in the water before pouring it out into the bowl again. 

It was still cloudy. Time to do it _again._

He went through this process several more times until the water finally came out clear. After the final time, he ran some more water into the pot, enough to nearly fill it up and sat it on the stove, and turned it on. The stove clicked as it came on, the gas fire lighting up and warming the bottom of the pot. Donnie went to get a big spoon and started stirring the pot occasionally as the rice cooked. 

Seeing the rice rise and the water levels go down slightly, just enough for the water to bubble under the rice, Donnie added more water to the rice, calming the pot of rice down. He quickly scooped a small spoonful of rice out of the pot and brought it to his mouth so he could taste it. By the hardness and crunchiness of the rice grains, he could easily tell that it wasn’t cooked. Donnie stirred the rice a few more times. 

Mikey got up, walking over to the stove, and tasted a spoonful of rice for himself. 

“They’re not done,” Donnie said just as Mikey was crunching on the rice. 

“They’re almost done,” Mikey said, peering over the pot, which had water bubbling under the rice once again. “You need to add more water to the pot.”

“I just did,” said Donnie, still adding another cup of water. The water settled and bubbled lightly, dangerously close to bubbling out of the pot and putting out some of the fire. 

“That pot is too little for all of that rice,” Mikey said finally, “You needed a bigger pot.”

“I only poured in half a pot of rice,” Donnie complained. 

Mikey stared at him, really stared at him before he spoke. “You do realize that rice expands when cooked right?” he said, “You do realize that?”

Donnie was silent, looking away from Mikey. 

“Donnie!” 

Donnie threw his hands up in slight frustration and embarrassment. “I didn’t know! I don’t cook rice!” he whined with a pout. “This is my first time cooking rice, how I was supposed to know?”

Mikey laughed at his brother and laughed a little harder at Donnie’s whining. Maybe he should be the older brother here, with how much whining Donnie was doing. “Well, rice absorbs water when you cook it. Now you know.” Mikey did another taste test of the rice, “It’s done. You need to drain the rice.”

Stepping away from his older brother, Mikey went to grab a colander and placed it in the sink. Donnie turned the stove off, picked up the pot, and carried it over to the sink so he could pour the rice into the colander. He poured the rice into the colander and ran some more water in the pot to get the last few grains of rice that were stuck to the sides of the pot. He let the rice sit in the colander for a minute or two, allowing the water to seep out. Once the water was fully drained out of the rice, he picked up the colander and sat it inside the pot. 

He sat the pot on the stove and got a large wok off the rack. Mikey handed him three bags of the frozen vegetable medley and told him to open the bags, place them in a bowl, and put them in the microwave for five minutes. Donnie grabbed a plastic bowl, dumped the three bags of vegetables in the bowl, and put the bowl in the microwave, turning it on for five minutes. 

“You know that Raph can’t eat shrimp right?” Mikey called out. “He’ll only throw it up.”

Damn it, Mikey was right. The last time Raph ate something with shrimp in it, it was shrimp alfredo pasta that Mikey had made that night. Raph had thrown up everything he had eaten that night pretty quickly and it was decreed that Raph was no longer allowed to eat shrimp after that. “Okay, then, I guess I’ll make chicken fried rice then and Raph’s gonna eat it and he’s gonna like it!” Donnie said.

“Woah there pops,” Shelldon said, “Calm down your evil scientist, let’s just cook the chicken.”

“Donnie playfully glared at his robot son, “I’ll just throw it in the microwave,” said Donnie, who went to go grab a bag of premade frozen chicken out of the freezer. When the vegetables were finished, he took them out and put the chicken in, and turned the microwave on once again. After a few minutes, Donnie took the cooked chicken out of the microwave, quickly sliced them into small pieces, and set it aside with the bowl of vegetables. He stepped away from the stove to grab some soy sauce out of the refrigerator and sesame oil out of the pantry. 

Now that he had everything that he needed, Donnie started cooking. He poured in some sesame oil into the pot and turned the heat on medium-high. He then poured in the bowl of vegetables and chicken and started stirred them. Donnie vaguely remembered from the occasional cooking show or two he watched with Mikey that you were supposed to stir the vegetables until they browned slightly. He wasn’t sure if he could do that this time around but maybe he could try it next time. 

If there was a next time, unless everyone tried his meal and ended up not liking it. He’s no Mikey but he really hoped that everyone liked his food. 

The oil sizzled and bubbled as he stirred the vegetables and chicken. Soon, the chicken started to brown at their tips and Donnie figured it was a good time to add in the rice. Donnie dumped the rice in the wok, opening the bottle of soy sauce and started adding liberal amounts of soy sauce into the wok and stirred as he did so, adding more as he saw fit. 

Donnie tasted the fried rice, decided that it was good enough as it was, and turned the stove off. 

“Donald? In the kitchen? And he’s cooking?” Leo said once he caught sight of his older brother and obnoxiously tiptoed his way over to the purple masked turtle. “This looks _delicious_ Donnie!”

Donnie’s face flushed at the praise. “Really?” he said, feeling slightly self-conscious.

“Yea, dude!” Leo said proudly, “Let me go tell Dad, April, and Raph! Start fixing plates! We could watch a Lou Jitsu movie!” 

Leo ran off, presumably to tell Dad and Raph about his accomplishment. He turned to Mikey, who was leaning in his chair and beaming proudly at him. “Can you help me fix plates and take them out?” he asked shyly, pointing his fingers together. He wasn’t even sure why he was so nervous, Leo said that it looked delicious but looking delicious didn’t necessarily mean it would taste delicious. 

“Sure Dee!” Mikey said, jumping out of his chair. He grabbed several bowls and forks and walked over to the stove and started fixing plates. When the bowls were filled with food, Mikey took three of the bowls in his arms and headed out to the movie room. Donnie grabbed the other three bowls and followed after him, with Shelldon close behind.

They met Leo, April, Raph, and Splinter in the movie room, all of them sitting around waiting for their meal. Mikey and Donnie handed out bowls, with the last two bowls saved for themselves. The two turtles sat down next to their brothers and April, with Master Splinter sitting comfortably in his recliner. 

“Purple, this smells divine,” the rat said with a smile, wafting the aroma to his nose and inhaling deeply. 

“I hope you like it. I was originally going to make shrimp fried rice for everyone but Mikey reminded me that Raph can’t eat it so then I went ‘fuck it’ and made chicken fried rice so I hope that everyone, especially Raph, likes it because I would be absolutely crushed if you don’t,” said Donnie, his voice picking up speed and stumbling over his words as he said that. 

Raph smiled before taking a spoonful of rice, and stuck it in his mouth. He chewed for several seconds and for Donnie, those few seconds seemed to last an eternity. This was it, Raph was going to spit it out and say that he should never cook anything ever again. 

“This is really good Donnie!” Raph said with a grin, eating another spoonful. 

“Really?” Donnie said, excitement bleeding into his voice. “You think so?”

“Yeah bro,” Raph confirmed. “I know so. Everyone dig in! Donnie, I hope you made more because I think we’re gonna want seconds.”

Splinter played the movie, Lou Jitsu’s ninjutsu antics playing over on the projector. Donnie flapped his hands excitedly, happy that everyone liked his meal, and started eating as well. 

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Leave a comment and kudos!! <3!!


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